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Search Term: Narcissists Aren’t Bad

I saw the search term: “narcissists aren’t bad” in my search engine stats just now. For anyone who wants to know whether a Narcissist is bad, I’ve written enough here about it to let you know. 🙂

That said: Narcissists aren’t bad people, they are people who do bad things. There is a difference. The school of thought to which I subscribe, because I believe it most accurately presents NPD as we encounter it most, is the one that says a narcissist is an individual whose emotional growth ended between age 6 and 7.

This age has commonly been known as the “age of reason.” It is the age, in most cultures, where a human child is believed to be emotionally developed to the point where he or she is capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong, and is capable of acting upon those differences, regardless their choice of action.

By the time an NPD individual reaches this age, he or she has assimilated emotional (and sometimes physical) abuse into themselves. They have integrated it into their own personality and for purposes of personal survival, have created clear lines of demarcation for good and bad within themselves. Generally, they will have been born to, and raised by, at least one NPD parent, if not two. If they have one NPD parent, the odds are very good the other parent is steeped in the emotional trauma wrought by a narcissist and is not capable of protecting the child because the non-NPD parent is too busy attempting to protect themselves.

The child witnesses this emotional war and defines for him or herself, based upon what they observe and are told, the best method to protect themselves from further hurt. This protection comes in the form of creating an alter-ego that, within the confines of their own minds, becomes themselves. This alter-ego is all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing, and many times simply omnipotent. The child creates an alter-ego that allows them to be God, thus giving them the illusion of control, at least within themselves.

This alter-ego is not to be confused with multiple personalities or schizophrenia. It is simply a coping mechanism whereby the child, who, at this point has been filled with the terror and humiliation of unrelenting emotional abuse, manages to construct, in his or her childish mind, what they believe they should be based upon what they’ve been told they really are.

Emotional abuse is contradictory. The child of an NPD may be told one day that they are the sun, stars and moon and that their N parent believes them to be special in a sense that no other child is special. The child internalizes this. It goes in the “good” drawer. The next day, the N parent contradicts what was said the day before and tells the child he or she is stupid, clumsy, and compares the child to the the sibling of favor for that day. You know the routine: “Why can’t you be like so-and s0? So-and-so isn’t stupid. So-and-so got an A in arithmetic. So why didn’t you get an A?”

The child internalizes this. This goes in the “bad” drawer. The child keeps the “bad” drawer locked as often as possible and only opens it far enough to allow devaluation to slide in and then the drawer is slammed shut and locked.

As the child grows physically, he or she remains at around age 6, emotionally. An NPD has never learned to integrate the “good” and “bad” into a whole. This is a crossover trait to Borderline Personality Disorder. NPD and BPD have many crossover traits, and I’ve found that when the behavior issues are seen in a male, they are termed NPD and when they are seen in a female, they are termed BPD. This is not always the case, though. It’s simply what I’ve seen.

Now, think about a six-year-old child. What is their primary focus? Their primary focus is themselves. A normal six-year-old child, raised by emotionally healthy parents will experience emotional growth that corresponds to their age. A six-year-old child who has a narcissistic parent, and another parent who is too busy attempting to survive the abuse perpetrated upon them by the narcissist, will retain, and further, hold dear, their primary focus, which is on themselves.

The child has constructed an alter-ego who they have come to believe is their “real” self, because at age 6, they subconsciously know that they can’t be as bad as mommy or daddy has said they are. It is at this point that all the good that might be in that child is sublimated to the alter-ego. The child grows up believing they ARE their alter-ego. They also know, but refuse to accept, that the alter-ego is nothing but a construct pulled from what they have perceived to be “good” along the way. They add to that drawer full of “good” – they add the ability to mimic empathy and compassion, but because they have sublimated their TRUE ability for empathy and compassion, and because the parents have not nurtured this ability, all they have is what amounts to a photograph of it.

So they keep taking photographs. Enter the mirror. By the time the child has grown to adulthood, he or she has become very adept at watching others and adding photographs of what they perceive as acceptable behavior to their “good” drawer. The problem with this is that they stopped developing, emotionally, between ages 6 and 7, so their criteria for good is that which they originally created as a child, and is unreasonable, unhealthy and a total illusion.

These children, who were unloved and abused and who learned to cope through construct, have grown into predatory adults who seek mirrors in the form of other human beings. They seek love, because it is a driving need for them. They will never admit it is a need as deep as hunger, but it is what they seek. Having no foundation for love; no good role model for it, they believe love is defined by all those photographs they have taken of behavior that fits the construct created when they were 6 or 7 years old.

These adults can’t love because whatever love they gave prior to age 6, was repudiated. Think about a child between the ages of birth to 6. I can use my own son as an example. I have never felt more loved or needed in my life, than during those years when my son was between birth and age 6. At age 6 he began to truly think for himself, to spread his fledgling wings and for those who watched, including me, his behavior was a giddy balance between self-serving action and true remorse when he realized his actions had hurt someone who loved him.

At age 6, my son was learning to assert himself as an individual; he drew from his prior experience with me and his father, and grew in compassion, empathy, and love. He learned that while he might want always to be the center of attention and so special as singularly “better” than anyone else, that he WAS NOT singularly special, beyond the fact that I thought of him as special only because he was my son, nor was he always going to be the center of attention. He learned this was a good thing.

Children of NPD parents do not learn this. Their journey into adolescence and adulthood is dramatic, traumatic and filled with contradictory information. By the time they reach adulthood, they have lost the key to their “bad” drawer and their “good” drawer has spawned several more “good” drawers, each filled with a jumbled detritus of what they have deemed, with their six-year-old emotional capacity to be acceptable behavior and character traits.

This is why an NPD is, at first, extremely charming, seemingly compassionate, empathetic and sensitive to your every need. They are pulling from their “good” drawer those characteristics they have deemed useful to their effort to gain attention. As they grew, they became more selective. If they were in a group gathering, they would watch to see which members of their chosen sexual orientation seemed to be having the best time, and then they would watch to see what was causing these people to have such a great time. They would photograph these behaviors and file them away.

Remember, a photograph is a shutter click in time. It is not extended reality. It is merely something that is for a short time. At this point, an NPD has nothing within themselves to draw upon for normal interaction, because they built their bomb shelter long ago. Nothing was allowed in that didn’t pass their stringent criteria, because anything that came in had to be something they could recognize as a reflection of what they viewed as “good” in themselves.

Over time, this collection of “good” gets confused. It is never filed in any order, and it’s never given another thought by the NPD other than as a tool with which they can bring people into their lives. It’s not a tool that is well-maintained. It is a tool that is disposable. When it wears out and doesn’t work anymore, the NPD goes in search of more supply. The “good” drawer is never quite empty because the NPD, like an addict, will see his fix getting low and will become frantic to replenish.

Straight male NPDs will go in search of straight females who exemplify all the qualities they have in their “good” drawer. Remember, the NPD doesn’t actually have these qualities in himself, he simply has pictures of those qualities, and they are qualities he actually believes are his, not something stolen from various mirrors/prey along his journey to find the perfect mirror.

The qualities the NPD stalks are those qualities that he can only mimic, because in order to sustain the qualities, they have to be an integrated part of the personality. The NPD stopped integrating anything into his personality at around age 6.

The most dangerous part of all of this is that the prey of an NPD doesn’t know they are prey until they have fallen victim to the NPDs abuse when they stop mirroring what the N wants, and believes he is entitled, to see.

The N believes that all the qualities he sees in his prey are HIS OWN qualities. Because he sees them as his own qualities, he cannot sustain any form of relationship, as relationships are all about give and take. They are about compromise and reciprocation. An NPD does not compromise and he does not reciprocate. He pretends to those things, for a very short time, because those are qualities he knows nothing about other than having seen them, briefly, in someone he held in esteem for a short period (because that person mirrored his beliefs about himself so well). As soon as anyone evinces dissatisfaction with the Ns behavior, they are instantly and ruthlessly devalued and discarded.

That’s not the end, though. The N has programmed himself to destroy anyone or anything that might reflect poorly upon him. After the first session of D&D, the victim will probably believe she truly DID do something to hurt this wonderful person and will set about attempting to right something that she never did wrong in the first place. The N will complacently sit back and watch, ever-vigilant for a slip-up. He will direct the victim’s actions, controlling everything and at the first inkling that the victim might step out of line, the N stomps. HARD. The devaluation gets worse, it becomes vicious. Sometimes it becomes deadly.

Herein lies the truth: The NPD is not stomping on the victim. He is stomping on a MIRROR that is reflecting what he knows and understands to be his true character, and he is destroying it so that he does not have to look at it. To look at it; to confront it, would mean deconstructing his safe-house; it would mean tearing down all the carefully constructed walls that took decades to build and an NPD does not have it within themselves to do that. It is not possible. Some say it is. My observations show otherwise, but I’m not a psychiatrist.

Narcissists didn’t start out bad. I don’t believe they are, at a soul level, bad. I do believe that the young age at which they built their defenses dooms them to behaving badly for their lifetime.

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14 thoughts on “Search Term: Narcissists Aren’t Bad”

Absolutely stellar explanation of an NPD, Ms. C. I mean, it is something that even a non-victim could read and form an understanding of what makes an NPD “tick”. Of course, it is never possible (imho) to actually describe what it’s like to have gone through a relationship/D&D & then finally left them- feeling like you’ve escaped a life sentence in the worst jail in existence…Also, it’s funny you saying that men diagnose as NPD, women as BPD. When I was dealing with my ex (female) I expressed to a counselour that she fit the traits of NPD. The counselour said she thought more BPD. Funny to read it here now- just thought I’d add that bit to let you know I experienced it first-hand.

Thank you! That’s high praise. 🙂 I had a discussion with my therapist on September 13 as to why there is such a divisive diagnosis of NPD for men and BPD for women. He explained that while most men are linear, most women are not. As a rule, a male NPD will focus on one proven method of attack. He may do it across a long line of women, but he’ll use what works best for him.

Women, on the other hand, are not linear. Women are usually diagnosed BPD because the entire arsenal is used, and when that happens, there is immediate chaos and turmoil. It’s not insidious as with NPD – it’s in your freaking face, and it’s screaming “pay attention to me or you will pay a HUGE consequence!” Women tend to inject chaos where this is none, just to gain attention. Men, on the other hand, quietly spin their webs and then, when their partner least suspects it, the mandibles close and poison injected. It’s a cleaner “kill.” Narcissists tend to go for what appears to them a cleaner emotional kill because it’s very difficult to unravel. Borderlines don’t care about clean, they just want the emotional kill. In either case, it’s a fix and it’s only good until the triumph of mastery wears off and they go in search of more supply.

NPD and BPD are so closely related as to be incestuous, but there ARE differences.

Sometimes and NPD will deliberately choose a BPD, because BPDs have huge abandonment issues and that provides a lovely little game of gaslighting for the N. BPDs also tend toward recurrent suicidal behavior which is rarely found in NPD. Bs will use threats of suicide to gain attention. They crave attention, whether it’s good or bad, but they don’t have the manipulative skills an N has to deflect skepticism. They’re usually too wrapped up in their own emotions – see Bs can FEEL. They can also change. Tough love will work on them – sometimes. With Ns, nothing works. They are totally empty. They have shoved early painful episodes so deep that they don’t feel emotional pain. They pretend to it very well though.

Remember, I’m only speaking from my experience and things that I’ve witnessed. Bs are in a great deal of pain and they FEEL it. They don’t know what it is, or why it’s there, but they will do anything to erase it, including drugs, blackout drinking, binge-eating, or their favorite: injecting so much chaos into someone else’s life that the person under attack doesn’t have time to step back and think, they simply react, and usually in a defensive manner, thus providing more ammo to the B.

Doc told me female Bs tend to be very loud about it. They are always pushing, always prodding, nagging, belittling, always making certain, in a LOT of words, that you’re responsible for their problems. N’s on the other hand, because they are usually male, will use very well-placed words, and few of them to slam a victim into an emotional tailspin. They will work in an underhanded manner, but will do so within the letter of the law, so they can look like a hero.

I guess the primary difference is that BPDs react while NPDs act. Neither is pleasant. This is not to say neither disorder doesn’t do what the other does, but if we were to put them both on a scale, the balance would fall the way I’ve described it.

N’s are also sneaky and subversive. They can be extremely covert in their actions, as the N I dated was. Bs tend to just vomit every horrible thing they’re feeling at your feet, blame you for it, and keep attacking until you clean it up just to get them to shut up. And again, that’s a trait an N can use.

I think the key difference is that BPDs will do absolutely ANYTHING to keep from being abandoned, whether that abandonment is real or imaginary. B’s will be ruthless in their manipulation of others to keep from feeling abandoned. They will kill. Think about the Betty Broderick case.

What bothers me about that case is her ex-husband came out smelling like roses and he had NPD written ALL over his smirking ass. NPDs do the abandoning and they do it with deadly accuracy. Once they’re finished toying with their victim through devaluation, they discard and they will let the victim know it’s all the victim’s fault. They will flaunt the discard if they can. If that victim happens to be BPD, look out. Someone could wind up dead.

If your ex has been diagnosed BPD, steer clear. If there are children involved, I know you can’t steer clear, but you can educate yourself with regard to the disorder and its affects on children so you can provide a counterpoint to it when the children are with you.

Knowledge is power. That’s why I have this blog. I didn’t have enough knowledge and I handed my power over to an NPD and he sent me into a tailspin after only 3 months and I’m just now beginning to feel strong enough emotionally to pull out of it. I got away from him in late July, and here it is, close to the end of September and I’m still healing from the damage.

If it’s too good to be true, then it’s too good to be true. This last experience has put me totally off men. I know it’s not the gender’s fault, but I feel incapable of making sound judgments with regard to men, so I simply took myself off the market. I’d rather live and die alone than live and die in a relationship with an N. I can’t imagine what victims of years of this abuse go through.

All I can say is oh my god. I had the exact same experience. And it left me feeling exactly the same way. I fear that there are so many of these NPD/BPD relationships going on, that an entire new subset of coupling is coming to light. Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual and now this, the N-B relationship. I would like to start on online group or forum to get the word out and save as many people as possible. No wonder the world is filled with cynicism, hatred, war, deception, etc. Perhaps we normal mortals are really aliens from a distant world. I bowed out and am terrified to date as well and even in business dealings I have major trust issues because I experienced an N.
But this, your writings, your insight, could literally have come straight from my own lips.
It is a pleasure making your acquaintance.
Great work.

Thanks for that comparison of BPD/NPD. I knew most of it from the massive amount of research & reading I did whilst desperately trying to figure out WTF was going on w/my ex. Her behaviour most definitely fell towards the NPD side of things. Originally, I thought that it had to be massive insecurity caused by years of losing those close to her (this turned out to be 99% fabricated- but that’s another story). But what was shown to me afterwards (D&D cycle) was nothing even remotely close to “fear of abandonment”. No, it was calculated, cunning, heartless, cold, cutting, deliberate destruction. The worst of it occurring even as I was arranging couples counseling. I got her to go twice- those two times she basically used to attempt to undermine me to the counselor. She only went along to try to charm the counselor into joining up with her to prove that I was the only one with problems, you know? However, at the end of the second, she dropped out two lies which I knew I could show as false- and once she knew she had been caught out, she made excuses as to why she didn’t wish to return (all B.S., but finally she decided she didn’t care for the counselor). This counselor, meanwhile, had already read my ex’s behaviour & demeanor during these sessions & actually sort of warned me at the final appt. (ex didn’t show for next two, so I had to stop going as it was for couples, after all) that likely my ex was not going to willingly do much to help us and that I needed to decide if I wanted to live like I was?

As far as the kids were concerned- they are mine from my previous marriage, prior to coming out as lesbian. My kids are pretty awesome people, trust their mum, and stood with me as I tried to keep things together. Eventually, my ex started taking things out on them- so I left. That was it for me- I could take standing up to her to defend myself, but would never allow anything towards my children. In leaving her, I placed the children & I in the position of being deported (which she threatened on a regular basis)- which would have gutted them as they love their new country. Eventually, after going through a year of red-tape, sabotage from their father, my ex, etc…our residency was granted on the basis of family violence.

As you say, the hardest part is the loss of trust of people- to the point that you simply cannot endure even the thought of any other relationship ever again. Right now, I’m dating a really great woman- and in the back of my mind, I feel I can’t fully trust- not her, but my own intuition & feelings any more. I still don’t trust that what I feel & think are correct- and it’s been nearly two years since I left. I’m happy for you that you got out when you did- and I wish you peace & strength to overcome the damage done. Hang in there…

Wow, Tracy. What a story. I’m truly glad you were able to get away and get your kids away! Kudos to you. Life may be a little difficult for a bit, but in the long term, your life and your children will benefit from your decision in ways you never thought possible!

From what I’ve read, BPDs employ calculating, cunning, cold cutting and deliberate destruction methods. They do it for two primary reasons:

1. they feel if they can devalue their partner enough, the partner will cave and stick around, thus keeping the B from being alone. It doesn’t matter if love is involved, just as long as the B is not alone and doesn’t feel abandoned. Remember, abandonment with Bs can be real or imaginary and while it may have been real as a child, the odds are good that it’s imaginary as an adult. Bs are just as prone to grandiosity as Ns. Their grandiosity shows in a more “excitable” form, sometimes with hysteria involved.

2. Their delusions tell them that if they are “abandoned” then they are unworthy, they are horrible people, and they will never, ever find someone else again. So they swing into action doing everything they can to keep from feeling this way. This is a crossover with NPD. Ns will also do this if there is no supply lurking on the horizon. Bs and Ns will both attempt to charm you back in so they can gain control and as soon as something new crosses their field of vision, they will dump you. They are both vicious and destructive about how they do it, but Bs invoke a hell of a lot more drama when they do it.

I have a friend who is currently involved with a B. She’s always at death’s door, and although she truly does have a heart condition that is dangerous, she deliberately doesn’t take care of herself. That way, she gets sicker and sicker and can command more and more attention. While she’s not taking care of herself she’s busily being nasty and blaming my friend for her condition because she won’t get off her ass, take care of herself, and get as healthy as she can and get a job.

The only money she has comes from him. She sucks it out of him and he pays up. He’s got his own set of issues, obviously, or he would have left her to “die” long ago. Most recently, through her own doing, she had another heart attack. If she’d taken the meds my friend’s money paid for; if she’d eaten the right food that my friend’s money paid for and if she’d followed the doctor’s orders (that my friend’s money paid for) she wouldn’t have had this heart attack. She’d have been on the road to healthy.

Instead, she threw out the healthy food he bought her, all the while screaming at him how stupid he was to buy her food that she didn’t have the “strength” to cook, and that he was an idiot because he didn’t just pay for a meal-delivery service. She takes the money he gives her and buys cigarettes and chain smokes, then blames him for her smoking because naturally, if he wasn’t stressing her out so badly, she wouldn’t have to smoke.

She refused to take her heart meds because she said they made her nauseated. Better that than dead, right? Wrong. She knows just how far she can go without winding up dead, and it’s so far that it takes her to the ER, where she winds up for days “under observation” and she screams at him over the phone from her hospital bed because he’s out working instead of being there with her. She screams that he can’t possibly love her, because if he did he’d be there, with her, instead of out working. When he told her she had to leave the hospital because he could no longer afford to pay the bills, she screamed herself into heart palpitations that kept her there another week.

No matter that it’s his work that pays for all her screaming. (yes, my friend has issues and we’ve talked about them. He won’t change.)

This woman’s latest maneuver was to sweet talk my friend into buying a house for her in Florida (he lives in Va) because she said that if she has to die, she’d like to do it in Florida. He told her he’d do it but that he wouldn’t move with her. She agreed. She understood. My friend didn’t get that on tape.

So he bought the house. Come time to move and she refuses to move and gaslights him with the old: “I didn’t ask you to buy me a house. That was YOUR idea. You’re just trying to get rid of me!” He finally gets her to move and she screams at him in the car for 900 miles, because he won’t give up his job and move to Florida to “take care of her.”

He finally got her moved, after weeks of stress and chaos, and he is paying ALL her expenses. He bought the house, pays utilities, pays a groundskeeper, pays all her doctor bills, pays for her medication, sends her a check every two weeks so she can buy food, and this woman screams at him that if he really loved her he’d send MORE money so she can buy new clothes, etc., so she’ll “fit in.” She blames him because she has no friends, and she blames him because she “had to move into this dump” from where she is now screaming by phone that he needs to buy her several guns so she can “protect” herself. I told him if he bought her a gun he was a dead man.

So, does the chaos stop with her in FL and him in VA? Oh no. I advised him to not answer his phone and not open her emails anymore but to simply send the next check with a letter letting her know that she would receive x number more payments from him and then she was cut off. He says he’ll do it, but I doubt it. He has a highly misplaced sense of honor and loyalty. He also LOVES chaos – even though he won’t admit it. It makes him feel important and needed. I did tell you he had his own issues…

My friend was married for 20 years to a woman exactly like his current girlfriend. I met him on a dating site many years ago and I now know the reason we couldn’t be anything more than friends. He needs to feel needed and the only way he can feel needed is if a woman is screaming demands at him that keep him stressed beyond maximum capacity for any normal human being.

He told me recently that he knows he missed his opportunity with me. He did. He’ll never have that again. I can’t meet his need for chaos and he doesn’t see any other way to live. He’d be bored without it. It’s a sickness and while I can be his friend, from a distance, I can’t be an integral part of his life.

This girlfriend of his is cold, calculating and cuts like the sharpest ginsu knife ever. She’s sneaky, manipulative, covert and very clever. She makes certain he is in a constant state of devaluation because she is petrified of abandonment. That’s why she works so hard at manipulation.

After five years with him, she’s learned how to push all his buttons and she does it with a vicious regularity. She’s made sure he feels responsible for her entire life, for everything past and present and while he knows this is all delusion, he accepts it. He takes it on because he has a “history” with her. I’m sorry, I don’t consider 5 years a history, not if you’re not married to a person. They never lived together.

I think perhaps the primary difference between NPD and BPD is the discard piece. This woman, who has so many crossover traits to NPD as to BE that, isn’t. She won’t ever discard my friend. She’ll kill him before she does that. She’ll do whatever she has to do to make sure he never leaves her, and if that means making certain she’s beneficiary of all his money and property before she sends him into cardiac arrest, that’s what she’ll do. She’s not stupid enough to outright murder him, but I’m afraid for my friend. I also know there’s nothing I can do for him because he won’t make the choice to turn his back on this sucking black hole.

The fact that YOU did the leaving leads me to believe that while your ex exhibits crossover traits to NPD, she very well may be BPD. She wasn’t going to do anything to help the situation, but she wasn’t going to leave you. She threatened to have you deported – not because she wanted you gone, but because she wanted you BACK.

She figured if she threatened you with that, you’d see that SHE was your only option and you would come crawling back to her. She wanted you around so she could keep devaluing you, thereby making herself feel superior.

She had her borderline supply in you, and she was about to lose it, so she pulled out all the stops. Her delusions allowed her to believe that her behavior would force you to come back to her, thus giving her another victory over you. Instead, you found your strength the minute she threatened your children (amazing how that’ll kick sense into us!) and you left.

My guess is she’s already found someone else, or if she hasn’t found someone permanent, she’s desperately hooking up – “bringing people in” so she can assess for weaknesses to exploit for the long term.

I’m going to do more research on this difference, because the two disorders feel so closely linked that it seems they should be ONE disorder. All the women I’ve known who are diagnosed BPD meet the NPD criteria, yet the men I’ve met who are NPD don’t meet all the BPD criteria. Hmmm.

As you say, NPD/BPD share so many traits that it’s difficult to separate the two sometimes.

I do see your point in the description of BPD traits, I really do. But I still maintain it feels more NPD to me.

No, my N was stuck in a lie- & that was the only thing she couldn’t extricate herself from- the children. She used them to pull people in as the “2nd mum” & how attached they were to her/she them. She spoke of all she had done & given up for them (which was zero). The threats of deportation grew ever more frequent & I got the impression, at the end, that she wanted me to give up/pull out- just so she could claim I was the one who had never been committed to us. It would be my fault, she would wash hands & move on. The unfortunate reality is that she has an ex, relatives, friends who are her enablers (as they only know the “perfect” side she shows). I found later that she had been sizing up a woman at her workplace all the while I was trying for counseling. We have a former mutual friend (who sided with me throughout and to this day) who has said he heard that my ex forbids her new, young victim to use a mobile phone…I have no doubt that she will continue to pull in as many innocents as she can.

Tracy, you just confirmed my suspicions. I’d say (and I’m no psychiatrist) that she’s probably more NPD. The fact that she had fresh supply waiting in the wings provided her with:

1. Excitement. She could feel that giddy, heady rush of a new “love” interest. She doesn’t want to have to work at a relationship, she just wants what she wants and she was sick of the work it took to keep together a relationship with you and children.
2. the belief that she had the upper hand and now no longer had to worry about being “abandoned” by you.

Based on this key piece, her actions seem to lead to more of a leaning toward NPD – once she had her fresh supply firmly entrenched she’d have dumped you. she was already leading to that discard with the devaluation of you. Making life miserable for you was both gravy and her way of making sure you’d leave her and then she could be the victim. I think you nailed it – if you pulled out then everything would be your fault and she would be able to say that you were never committed to the relationship in the first place.

I feel for the next woman who falls into her spiderweb. And there WILL be a next one. And one after that. And one after that. And she’ll lie to all of them. She may even just “erase” you and tell her new supply that she hasn’t been involved with anyone in a very long time. That kind of deceit is perpetrated to make the new victim feel even more comfortable and extremely special since she’ll feel like the “chosen” one. That’s what Ns want you to feel up front.

My N did that to me. He told me he’d been uninvolved for 2 years and hadn’t found a woman (until he met me) who met his criteria for a long-term partner. I found out, after the fact, that he’d been seeing his ex up until 5 months before he met me, and during that 5 months he was away from his ex, he was trolling and dating multiple women, each for a few weeks at a time – the pattern fit what he did with me. He’d meet someone, tell them his sob story, make them feel “chosen” suck all the emotion out of them, devalue them, discard and move on to the one he already had waiting in the wings. When I found all this out, I showered. Actually, I spent an entire week taking about 5 showers a day, and I never became sexually involved with him (thank GOD)!

I just have to set things straight here: You guys and gals have BPD and NPD all mixed up and reversed. Yes it is true that BPD and NPD have alot of similarities HOWEVER there are ONE big difference: BPDs swing WILDLY on their emotional pendulum – they can literally be on top of the world at 12:00 o clock and crying in deep depression at 13:00 o clock. NPDs do NOT have any fluctuation in their feelings. They are like machines, like robot.

I am NPD myself – male – and I wondered for a long time if I was actually a genuine psychopath because my feelings do not seem to exist. People always comment how stoic and calm I am…but this is because I have no real feelings LOL. I don´t chase the rush of a new love because I feel no real love. I have spent all of my life trying to figure out what other people feel and how it must be like to have those feelings. I don´t have them. This also goes as far as my sexual life. Some girls have been in awe because I can keep up for hours without ejaculating. This is not really because I am particularly disciplined but because most of the time I don´t really feel that much stimulation. In fact I can´t feel my body at all most of the time. It´s actually quite horrible to live like this and I do feel like an alien and wonder how it must feel to be a normal person.

This is the exact OPPOSITE of how a BPD feels. They feel 10x more than normal people (and x100 more than a NPD) . When they are in love and are happy it is much much more intense than with the average person but it is also 10x worse when they are depressed and in a bad mood.

I do agree however that both are very toxic to be around. I am myself. My inner rage and contempt for my fellow man and the world on large is endless. Normal healthy people avoid me or drop me the instant they feel this dark cold emanating from me or get a glimpse of my superior attitude. That stirs my rage to monolithic proportions. I hate people I cannot control and subtly influence. And people I can control and influence I hate because I consider them weak and easy prey.

I will now tell you of the only real and also greatest satisfaction I ever had in my life: It was once where I psychologically, mentally and spiritually totally controlled a supremely beautiful 23 year old girl. She was beautiful like a super model and with a sexual charisma that simply oozed from her feminine chalice. This made her – of course – worthy of my godlike attention. I do not like ugly people. Or dumb people.

I was completely inside this girls mind. There was a tangible yet subtle transfer of energy from her to me where she completely gave up her spirit and subjugated to me in the most beautiful manner. Words really cannot describe this scenario but know that I fed of her fear and of her very soul. Her soul was beautiful. Mine is not.

She felt how my psyche overpowered hers and she felt the truth of the unexplainable yet very real thing that was happening between us. And it was not love. It was far greater than love. It was strong and undeniable mind control. Imagine an entity thousands of years old spreading out its mighty dark wings and in one big, powerful swoop striking down on a young, beautiful naive girl. This was the reality. She faced something she had never faced before. Something ancient, something subtly cunning and evil. This stirred deep in her soul a primal fear and she had no choice but to give up her will to me without questioning. I delightedly tore into and FED viciously on her energies. I used her soul to fill up the dark and empty void that is myself.

I never wanted and equal partner. What I want is an organic robot without a will of its own who will perfectly mirror my own grandiose sense of self.

The mental power I had over this girl was by far more intense and beautiful for me than any sex I have ever had.

I will never forget it. But I don´t miss her. Because she never existed for me as a genuine person.

This is a look into a NPDs mind you will never get again. So remember it well. Bye.

Tracy, I don’t know if you’re still reading, but I just re-read this individual’s post. It’s frightening beyond belief, because in it he describes a scenario with a 23 year old woman. That same scenario was described to me by someone last year. It was a man I was dating! I had finally come out of my shell enough to date, and I met this guy who seemed wonderful. Not a single effing narcissist red flag waved at me, no bells clanging, even by the third date. It wasn’t until 3 months or so that he casually mentioned a short story he wrote, and that it was “rather autobiographical.” I read it and was instantly appalled. He attempted to devalue me for reacting in a way that did not reflect his own opinion of the story. He then went on to tell me I would never be a good enough partner for him because I wasn’t submissive. That’s when I realized he was active in the BDSM world and thought of himself as a DOM because women gave their control over to him. I told him that he was a sick, twisted bastard and he casually agreed, stating that being as he was made him a more evolved life form than others. I left. He kept emailing me all sorts of nasty narcissistic crap. I set him to auto delete. Last I heard, he’d talked some poor woman into letting him live with her. Rent free, no doubt.

I found out months later that this guy was heavily into prescription drugs. Not using them, but making up injuries to get them to sell. He also attempted to gaslight me regarding Christmas gifts he commissioned me to make for him to give to his sisters for Christmas. He agreed to pay me $240 for the two pieces of jewelry. When I delivered tem, he gave me the “a bit strapped for cash” song and dance. I’m a kind person by nature, and my thought was of his two sisters who were expecting these gifts, so I agreed he could pay when he got back from New York. When he returned, he never contacted me. I emailed an invoice, and he promptly replied stating he never agreed to pay me for the pieces, rather, that I had told him I was gifting them to him. Classic gaslight. I sent two more invoices and received nothing. One day out of the blue he pulled into my driveway behind me, blocking me in. He thought he was coming in my home!! I got back in my car and forced him to back up because I drove straight at him. He knew neighbors were watching so he left. I moved out of state shortly thereafter and left no forwarding address with anyone. Haven’t heard from him since and I couldn’t be happier! The story the guy above posted is too effing much like Mr. Ns short story to be coincidence. Mr. N, if he stumbled across this blog, would not know it’s mine. No one who knows me in real time knows I have this blog or what my nom de plume is. So it’s kinda freaky, eh?

And I do read- even if I don’t reply. I am self-employed & have taken on the 2nd half of a property to get all of my work junk out of my house! I do computer repair & it is not something attractive to have in your home- & no way to keep it neat, as I use all of the stuff. Anywho- I have been busy plate-spinning as the only income, as well as taking on a mate of my son whose mother moved in with a BF & basically was told he wasn’t welcome…Thus, I now work 7 days. But hey, at least I have a skill & way to get us by- & for that, I’m supremely grateful. How’ve you been keeping?

Yay for self employment! Up until August I wasn’t keeping well at all. Work was scarce to non-existent, and I didn’t work from January thru the middle of October. Got a short temp job that I liked, but that ended, and I start a new job tomorrow that is supposed to be temp to perm.

I hadd to move in with my sister at the beginning of August. Divested myself of 90% of my stuff, and moved down here to Maryland. Purging was painful because while I didn’t have a ton of belongings, everything I owned had been chosen carefully and had meaning to me. Still, I feel much lighter in spirit because of it, and I don’t miss owning the things.

I’m just working on myself. Not interested in romantic relationships at all. Have got myself to the point where I’m happy just being with me and don’t want the hassle and stress of making a relationship work right now. I’m not willing to compromise at all at this point in my life. I’m making it all about me, and it’s not fair to me or anyone who might want an involvement with me, to enter into a lopsided relationship! Wow, very poor syntax! Lol!

My goal is to get a years worth of living expenses in the bank before I think about moving back out on my own.

It’s been a huge adjustment, living with my sister, but we’ve settled in and things are going much more smoothly now.

It’s still a tough economy here, and I’m not being paid anywhere near what I’m worth for this new temp job, but I doubt we will see those high salaries again. I’m grateful to have work, so I’m working on smoothing my ruffled feathers down after what I perceived to be a huge professional insult regarding my pay for this job. I need money, period. So I’m going in tomorrow with a glad heart and my suck it up hat on. Employment is good.

Yay for self employment! Up until August I wasn’t keeping well at all/ I start a new job tomorrow that is supposed to be temp to perm.

When I arrived in AU, it was a plan that my ex & I would be doing this as our occupation. That didn’t happen, but after I worked in two retail electronics/computer shops, I gained enough of a following to take it further & start out on my own. It took a near-death car accident to put me into the narrow field which qualified for new biz gov’t assistance- but I got in & the rest is, as they say, history.

I had to move in with my sister at the beginning of August/Divested myself of 90% of my stuff/Still, I feel much lighter in spirit because of it.

I’ve left so much behind, so many times, that I’ve basically learned t NOT attach myself to deeply to “things”. For me, the value is in the memory they elicit. I’m not a gatherer or very much a materialistic sort. Typical Aquarian- lol.

I’m just working on myself. Not interested in romantic relationships at all. Have got myself to the point where I’m happy just being with me and don’t want the hassle and stress of making a relationship work right now.

I sooooooo hear you! And is it to do with my past experiences? You betcha! I have to say, I miss the illusion of the relationship that never was…I miss the closeness for the short time it presented itself (as untrue as it was, which I know now). But in the aftermath I am far happier NOT having to worry & wonder. I go to sleep when I wish & wake up the same. I answer to no one (well, the cat & kids)…and the decisions I make are mine, good or bad- and that’s just fine.

My goal is to get a years worth of living expenses in the bank before I think about moving back out on my own/It’s been a huge adjustment, living with my sister, but we’ve settled in and things are going much more smoothly now.

I feel like I’d love to share platonic quarters with someone to help w/ rent- but again, it’d have to be one of those, “planets-aligned” things to even take on a flat-mate at this point. I feel like I really don’t have anything more to give & because of that, don’t want to put myself into any sort of possibly awkward room-mate troubles.

It’s still a tough economy here, and I’m not being paid anywhere near what I’m worth for this new temp job, but I doubt we will see those high salaries again.

Thanks to the dumbing down of & insideous removal of basics that our/all gov’ts seem to be engaged in. The top 1% now fully own them & the laws are shifting (corps. are people?) to satisfy the least principled & most greediest in the world. Imho.
.Sounds like you are doing well enough. How are your children?

Both very well, thanks. My son is at the end of yr. 3 of 5 at uni studying computer science/computer systems engineering. He recently made the Vice Chancellors List: top 1% of all undergrads across the entire uni! My daughter is in the Big Picture program at her high school & just received a glowing report back for her last term’s work.

Yeah, sounds like we all have something to be grateful for? I’ll be working to help to keep it this way.